Beth's Everything Blog

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Whatever happened to good manners?

Jan Brewer, the Governor of Arizona, demonstrated her lack of good manners when she shook her finger at the President of the United States on the tarmac of Tucson’s airport last week. Shame on her. Shame too on Joe Wilson for yelling “You Lie” at the President, during his state of the union speech a couple of years ago. Both demonstrated a lack of respect for our highest elected official. Ms. Brewer’s and Mr. Wilson’s mothers would probably be mortified, and Emily Post, (remember her?) would be deeply saddened at such conduct. During her heyday, “According to  Emily Post” was an oft heard phrase. She represented a model of behavior that governed generations of people.

Here are some common courtesies we seem to have forgotten. Feel free to add to the list.

Handwriting thank you notes.

RSVPing to invitations (répondez, s’il vous plaît.)

Saying “Hello” instead of “Hey.”

Arriving on time.

Dressing appropriately.

Standing and greeting older people when they enter.

Here’s one that I find particularly annoying: How to be addressed properly by our server in a restaurant instead of ‘guys’ (as in, what can I get you guys?)

Tom, our oldest, is a Trecky. Some years ago he and his little girl Jami would sit on their deck at night in Stilwell Kansas and wait and watch for the extra-terrestrials to come get them and carry them away. In those days, our countrymen were quite literally walking on the moon. Space travel was at the top of  Tom’s ‘to do’ list.

Then, in 2005, President George W. Bush signed a presidential decree canceling the space shuttle program saying he couldn’t find any justification for funding a program that had no application.

Looks like China doesn’t agree with that. Their space program, run by the well funded military, has a ten year plan that includes opening a space station on the moon in 2020. Also, Russia is discussing a mission to Mars and even India is planning a manned space flight in 2016.

President Obama talks about sending astronauts to an asteroid, and from there, on to Mars. Tom would like to go on that venture but the soonest will be 2025. President Obama has tried to increase funding for the  Commercial Crew Development Project, a NASA program which hopes to stimulate efforts in the private sector for safe, cost effective space transportation capabilities. Even though it meets Republican criteria for private enterprise, a coalition from both parties has blocked the plan. NASA will go before congress to try again in February.

Meanwhile, astrophysicists are engaged in breathtaking studies of the universe using satellites and powerful telescopes that travel through space. Looking past our own Milky Way Galaxy, many other galaxies have been found with black holes much bigger than ours. (Not enough space to discuss black holes here, but scientists say there is no chance earth will fall into one.)

However, NASA scientists and astrophysicists the world over are searching for planets in our galaxy. These explorers estimate there are 50 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy.  Many of them, perhaps 500,000 million are in a climate zone which may support life. In our tiny portion of the Milky Way, there may even be a planet or two, perhaps more, with intelligent life.

If we don’t want to lose our place as the leader of space exploration, we better think seriously about funding it, either through private industry or government or both.

As for Tom’s dreams, he still wants to travel in space. Maybe that will happen  sooner than he thinks.

Tip: Steer clear of web sites containing information supplied by the Chinese. There may be mischievous people  lurking out there who will merrily put viruses on your computer that completely wipe out your hard drive.

There is a new book I simply have to own. It is written by Robert Hughes, an art critic who uses words so magnificently and so wittily that he is famous for his long career of passionate opinions. The new book is entitled ROME-A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History. Hughes is not the stuff of classical art history scholars, but he is capable of prodigious energies and enthusiasms and he is a past master of the well turned phrase. He is not only eloquent; he is also courageous and forthright in his opinions. And so this essay must of necessity take direct quotes of Hughes’ personal history writing in order to give full meaning to the excitement I feel as I turn the pages.

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes was born, raised and educated in Australia. Law was the family business through three generations but it did not excite him. He has been described as knowledgeable, sensible, passionate, lucid, unpretentious and most importantly, witty. He concentrated on the visual arts and architecture. His books on Barcelona and Goya as well as on Australia have delighted his audience . He has been the art critic for TIME as well as a documentary film maker and he has lived in the USA for most of his adult life.

What astounds many of his critics is that he finds new observations to make about Rome, a city that has been observed, discussed, praised, and vilified for over 2000 years. The reader sits and nods in recognition of the validity of his complaints about Rome’s traffic or the thousands of tourists pouring into and out of the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. He cites Caravaggio’s portrayal of beautiful young Italian boys and describes them with “hair like black ice cream”. Another entry about the Cathars, a heretical sect in southern France whose members were massacred in the Albigensian Crusade, is commented upon thus, “One might have thought that such mild people presented about as much threat to society as a gaggle of vegans–whose spiritual ancestors, in a sense, they were.” There is a description of a mural depicting gory martyrdom as “a kind of Sistine Chapel for sentimental sadists.” Hughes even has a snide understatement about the cruelty of Nero toward the citizens of Rome and even his own family, “Even without the accusations of arson, Nero’s treatment of others, including his own family, was to, put it mildly, defective.”

This is a complicated narrative of the mythological founding of Rome which Hughes takes the reader through and it explains the rise and fall of Rome as well as well as shepherding the reader throgh the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Baroque. Particularly fascinating is the passage on Bernini’s Baroque Apollo and Daphne. Apollo, the god of light and unmarried men, is desirous of a carnal relationship with Daphne, a chaste nymph. In the tempestuous battle between chastity and sexual desire Daphne begs to be saved. “Nobody had tried to illustrate in sculpture things in transition, to convey what was incomplete or in the very process of change. Yet we do see the change from girl to tree happening before our eyes; the bark enveloping and encasing her lithe body; softness giving way to ligneous toughness; movement turning into rootedness. Moreover, the sculpture seems to defy what we know is the chief property of stone: its brittleness.” In another critical estimate Hughes depicts the death of Germanicus with the man’s face turned away so that his expression is not revealed; he says this is “Poussin’s way to suggest that this death is not a private issue but one of history itself”.

When Hughes takes Rome into the modern era he makes comparisons between Mussolini and Hitler that are difficult to absorb “what you saw with Mussolini was what you got. The Italians admired his courage, which was not in doubt. He was clearly not in politics for personal gain; he cared nothing for money or domestic comfort….He had no middle-class background; he was wholeheartedly patriotic and genuinely male.” Then to bring the book up to the present day he complains about Italians wasting their time on soccer and overloading on bad television.

Why, you may ask, am I so enamored of the book and Hughes? To which I must respond that he and I have two important things in common–the glory and the grandeur of Rome through the ages. and a love and abiding respect for Italy. If you have been to Rome, if you want to go to Rome, even if you are not going to Rome it is a fascinating wonderful joy to read.

A very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

Give yourself and your family a gift by opposing the Keystone LX Pipeline. Read:

Michael Brune: The Keystone XL Pipeline Scam

There is a bill before Congress to extend unemployment insurance and payroll tax cuts. It will be voted upon soon. Though unemployment fell last month, there are still over six million Americans in need of assistance. Also, unless Congress extends the payroll tax cuts, 160 million Americans will have to pay $1000 in increased taxes next year.

Some are staunchly against the passage of this bill. But some, especially the oil lobby,  desperately want the Keystone Oil Pipeline. John Boehner is considering attaching approval of the Keystone Pipeline XL to the bill.

Consider what that can mean to YOUR environment!  Spills from existing pipelines have been well documented. An existing pipeline, Keystone 1, has already leaked 14 times since it went operational in June 2010; one spill dumped 21,000 gallons of tar-sands crude. Another existing tar-sands pipeline spilled more than a million gallons in the Kalamazoo River.

30% of the nation’s groundwater will be put at risk as well as 82% of the drinking water coming from the Ogalalla Aquifer leaving your children an increasingly dangerous world.

It is true that construction of the pipeline, which runs down the middle of the United States from Canada to The Gulf of Texas,  may create some 20,000 jobs, but at what cost to our country?

If you don’t believe the Keystone Pipeline would drastically damage the environment, take a look at where the oil comes from and the damage it’s already done; the tar sands in Alberta Canada . Click here for pictures taken by Robbie Mcclaran, a nationally known freelance photographer.

President Obama has already said he will veto the bill if it passes with the Keystone attachment.

We should too. Each of us has only one tiny voice but we can become a roar if we all speak together. My Congressman is Kevin Yoder. Please Sir, Don’t vote for the Keystone Pipeline!

                                                                                                                                                                                          Alberta Canada Tar Sands